Occupying Colombo blocks memorial event at Mu'l'livaaykkaal

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 17 May 2017, 23:10 GMT]The judiciary of occupying Colombo has blocked a peaceful memorial event, which was being organized by St. Paul’s Church at Mu’l’livaaykkaal East. The SL Police subjected the priest of the church, Fr. Elil Rajendram, who is also a civil activist, to prolonged interrogation on Tuesday night at the instigation of the military intelligence of the SL military. The Jesuit priest has been targeted for his long involvement in the criticism of local investigations, informed civil sources told TamilNet. The memorial event to be held on 18 May was only targeting to have 800 memorial stones engraved with the names of Tamil civilians who perished in the genocidal onslaught. The interim order issued by the SL court in Mullaiththeevu said the move could be seen as harming ‘integrity’, ‘national security’ and ‘peace’ of the ‘country’.

Engraving names of victims perished in genocidal onslaught in Vanni is interpreted by the SL military intelligence and SL Police as an act of harming the national security, integrity and the peace of the occupying SL State.

The memorial event was being organised by the people who are under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of St Paul’s church.

The people erected a memorial statue last year.

It was the very first monument to be erected in remembrance of those who perished in Mu'l'livaaykkaal and was also sculpted by a non-Tamil in the island, although the identity of the artist could not be revealed.

The people of the parish were only engaged in arranging a temporary memorial event on Thursday and the stones with engraved names were to become part of the memorial construction of the monument.

The interim order came while the people engaged in the work struggling to complete the planned engraving on time before Thursday.

How could this ‘jeopardise’ the ‘national security’ and ‘integrity’ of the occupying Sinhala State, Tamil activists in Vanni ask.

This is nothing else than a counter-insurgency of the SL State and its ‘military-to-military’ global partners, Catholic activists in Vanni said. The State Establishments want to erase everything regarding the memory of the people, they further said.

The interim order was citing section 106 of the ‘Code of Criminal Procedure Act’ (Power to issue absolute order at once in urgent cases of nuisance‚ to issue absolute order at once in urgent cases of nuisance), to issue the interim order for 14 days based on SL Police version of interpreting the self-mobilised memorial event as having the potential of harming the ‘integrity’, ‘national security’ and the ‘peace’ in the country.